Challenge On: Female Journalists Report from the Front Lines

A look at female journalists and 10 great stories they’ve lent their byline to.

Last week, shortly after the tragic death of New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid, journalism lost another one of its veterans: Marie Colvin, who died in a tragic bombing in the Syrian city of Homs. No stranger to violence, Colvin, who was a correspondent for the UK’s SundayTimes, spent her career reporting from war zones and conflict-ridden countries, even losing an eye during Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2001. As Colvin was almost certainly aware, female journalists face an additional suite of challenges and dilemmas when reporting from conflict areas and in unfamiliar territories, making their willingness to report from the front lines even more admirable.

Despite the pioneering careers of Colvin and others, journalism is still an industry dominated by men; nearly three quarters of stories in the New Yorker and The Atlantic in 2010 were written by men. So, to honor fine examples like Colvin, and to inspire more females to follow in her footsteps, here are ten remarkable stories penned by female journalists, including Colvin’s last dispatch from Syria. The writers of these stories ventured into places where few outsiders would dare – an all-male prison rodeo in Louisiana, the front-lines with anti-Gadaffi rebels, and the personal life and mind of the creator of Girls Gone Wild – to find what any good journalist covets: a compelling story.

Rosie Spinks is a freelance journalist from California with a degree in Environmental Studies. Her work has been published in publications including Sierra magazine, GOOD magazine, the Ecologist, and the Guardian Environment Network. A passion for travel, running barefoot outdoors, and reconnecting people to what is good dominates most of her thoughts. You can follow her writing on Twitter and Tumblr.

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